Kremlin disputes teen's alleged Putin plea

Moscow - A 14-year-old Russian orphan with a debilitating
genetic disease has reportedly asked President Vladimir Putin for the right to
live with his prospective adoptive family in the US.

But the Kremlin immediately called the reports false and
a provocation aimed at discrediting Russia's international reputation and
embarrassing Putin.

The letter from a boy named Maxim in the hardscrabble,
industrial Urals city of Chelyabinsk came two weeks after Putin signed into law
a bill banning all US adoptions.

The measure was given fast-track approval and almost no parliamentary
debate in reprisal for new US legislation that targets alleged Russian rights
abusers.

But the law also created controversy at home and up to 20
000 people are expected to come out on the streets of central Moscow in protest
on Sunday.

Chelyabinsk media said the boy had been in touch with the
US family - the Wallens - from the state of Virgina for seven years and that
his case was already under court review when Putin signed the ban into law on 28
December.

"I would be very grateful if you come out in favour
of children," the website of local Chelyabinsk television quoted Maxim's
letter as saying on Thursday.

"Do not deprive children of their right to obtain a
family," the boy reportedly wrote.

The media did not identify the disease from which Maxim
was suffering, but several reports said treatment was easily accessible in the
US.

The Kremlin's local children's rights representative said
the chances of Putin changing his mind at this were "very low".

She described the Wallens as caring and attentive - two
qualities missing from Maxim's children's home.

"There is a chance to treat Maxim in America and the
Wallens are willing to pay," she said. "He could get a good education
in that family."

Using children as pawns

The US government has accused Russia of using children as
pawns in high-stakes diplomatic games during ex-KGB agent Putin's tumultuous 13
years in power.

But Putin has defended the measure, while national media
released interviews with the director of Maxim's children's home denying that
the teenager was either sick or had ever written such a letter.

"He has no genetic disease," the director of
Children's Home No 13, Denis Matsko, told Business FM radio.

"He has certain health problems - just like we all
do."

A co-sponsor of the Russian adoptions legislation said
she believed the letter was genuine but said adults had probably made Maxim
write it to make Russia look bad.

"This is all being done in order to make Russia look
bad again," ruling United Russia party member Yekaterina Lakhova told the
state RIA Novosti news agency.

"To manipulate a child like that - I just cannot
imagine how someone could do that."

And a Kremlin spokesperson said no such letter had
reached Putin's desk.

"We checked everything very carefully," Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state media. "The president's administration
never received a letter."

Foreign adoption

Foreign adoptions are a sensitive issue in Russia because
the practice of adopting has never truly taken hold among Russians themselves.

The Soviet Union raised all disadvantaged children in
children's homes, many of which continue to operate today across the country.

The United States comprises the largest part of foreign
Russian adoptions - nearly 1 000 adoptions were recorded last year - while
Russia is the third-most popular country for US nationals seeking children
abroad.

Putin's law terminated the processing of nearly 50
adoption cases that had been under review by the Russian courts.